Christmas Crazy!

The Rickard Household has gone a little Christmas crazy this year! Matthew and Ryan are so into the Christmas spirit! Matthew is fascinated with the magic of Christmas. He is sorting out the way it all works in his head and sharing his theories. He has come to the conclusion that the elves are the real heroes of Christmas as the do the bulk of the actual work!

 Our magical tree!

 Nathan and his little helpers!

 Nathan took the boys to the mall to get elf hats which Ryan and Matthew LOVE! But Benny wanted reindeer ears until I found this hat for me and he decided I looked my better in antlers and he would graciously give me his ears and i could give him my hat!

 The garage lights....

 the decorations in the gum tree!

 the tinsel in the gum tree!

 Then it was over to the neighbours house to help them! Well the real story is Jose and Paula had a massive barney putting up their lights last year and we all wanted to watch the show again!

Gee my husband is clever!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Our tree is up! And as usual it was a community affair!

 

Cleon really got into the spirit of Christmas! There were carols blasting out of the stereo, laughing and joking!

Everyone got to hang some decorations.

Even Eva from across the street!

Ta da!

Ben giving daddy direction on how to do it properly!

Matthew thinks Christmas is serious, serious business!

It was Ben's turn to put the star on this year. He also wanted to put his angel on that he made at playschool!

We then had to move onto the second tree that goes in the family room. It was my turn to put the star on this one!

The final tree was the bauble tree which is in Matthew's room this year since he has gone Christmas crazy!

Ben setting up the nativity scene.

He did an awesome job!

Yum!

Check out the strawberries we picked from out garden! We can sympathise with the pain and suffering of farmers now as we lost the rest of our crop to the flooding rains! They all went rotten! Oh well, we did get to taste a few!

Summer is on its way!

A few weeks ago Ben insisted on taking my photo while I was enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

 He doesn't take a bad shot!

Mummy you need to smile!

On a side note bring back the sunshine. Whilst we are truly thankful for the rain we really, really have had enough for now thank you! If possible could you give it a month and then return but not so viciously! Poor Queanbeyan is completely flooded!

Street Party

We are lucky enough to live in an awesome street where we can often be found standing in the middle of the road chatting to the neighbours. During one of these chats we decided we should have a street party to meet the few people that we didn't already know. So I put an invite in all the letter boxes, we closed off the street and had a party!

 We put the jumping castle on our front lawn and the kids hardly got out of it all night!

 Getting to know everyone.

 All the kids enjoying an ice cream!

 Me enjoying all the babies! Jonah so wanted my ice cream!

Ryan tucking into the strawberries grown in Krista's backyard!

We had an awesome night. We only had one house come that we hadn't met before but we still had a great time with the people we had met. It sounds like everyone had a blast and they are going to become a regular occurrence! I love my street!

Miles Franklin Fete

I couldn't go to the fete this year with the Whooping Cough in the community so Nathan go to have all the fun! All i got were these photos, when they got....

 Slushies! Yum! And.....

 A ride on the swing chair and......

 a hot dog cooked by the teachers! And....

all of these cool toys from the white elephant store! And now Nathan knows to go there last because this year they went there first and he had to carry them the rest of the night!

End of Movember

Well Movember is finished. Nathan did such a good job using his face to promote Men's health issues he raised over $1000! After Nathan's struggle with depression last year we both felt he needed to help promote this awful illness. And while he didn't do it in great style he did do it! It took a long time... Ryan didn't notice it until after 24 days of growth! However I noticed it from about day three and placed a kissing ban on him for the month!

I was quite relieved when he finally shaved it off on the first of December that I couldn't wait to do this........

I just wanted to post some of the comments made from people who donated. Firstly because they were funny and secondly because we wanted to say thank you!

Teesh: Congratulations on making it through Movember. I would love to stay and chat but I really mustache! Love you xxx



Janey: You made it! Woot woot! Here's a dollar for each of the mo's 30 glorious days of existence (and an extra-special dollar for each day Jen had to put up with it!). xxJ (I appreciated this one Janey! Although he probably owes you a couple of bucks as it didn't really exist for the first few days!)
 
Cleon: Nath, we could shave your eyebrows and glue them to your top lip. love ya Cleon xx :)





Brenton: You have a strong rickard mo legacy to live upto!

Whoops

Recently Ryan made a boat as part of his integrated unit on water. He called it the Jenny.(Or back to front J-ene!)  No doubt you are all going Awwww. But he actually named it after the little boat the cruises Lake Burley Griffin called Jenny!

 Anyway it came to bath time and Ryan and Ben became very, very upset! Ben was upset because Ryan's boat didn't float and Ryan was upset because he hadn't planned on it needing to be waterproof!

The poor Jenny is no longer sea worthy and had to be recycled!

I think the drought might have broken!

Canberra has been in a drought for as long as I can remember. Our until recently our dams sat below 40%. After the last few weeks they are now full and overflowing! We had a huge down pour on Saturday when a river of water was flooding off our entertainment area and down our new granite path!

 

 Our turf is certainly getting enough water!